Call Me Irresistible (11 page)

“Hard to tell. Spencer Skipjack’s unpredictable. Six weeks ago he told us he’d decided on San Antone for sure, but now here he is again.”

Meg had overheard enough conversations to know Spencer Skipjack was the owner of Viceroy Industries, the giant plumbing company, and the man they were all counting on to build some kind of local upscale golf resort and condo complex that would attract both tourists and retirees and rescue the town from its economic doldrums. Apparently Wynette’s only decent-size industry was an electronics company partially owned by Kenny’s father, Warren Traveler. But one company wasn’t enough to sustain the local economy, and the town was in bad need of jobs along with a fresh source of revenue.

“We have to show Spence the time of his life tomorrow,” Ted said. “Let him see what his future’ll be like if he chooses Wynette. I’ll wait until dinner to get down to business—lay out the tax incentives, remind him of the bargain he’ll be getting on that land. You know the drill.”

“If only we had enough acreage at Windmill Creek to bulldoze the place and put the resort there.” The way Kenny said it suggested this was something they’d frequently discussed.

“It would be a lot cheaper to build, that’s for sure.” Ted set his beer can aside with a thud. “Torie wanted to play with us tomorrow, so I told her if I saw her anywhere near the club, I’d have her arrested.”

“That won’t stop her,” Kenny said, “and having my sister show up is the last thing we need. Spence knows he can’t outplay us, but he’d hate getting beat by a woman, and Torie’s short game is practically as good as mine.”

“Dex is going to tell Shelby she has to keep Torie away.”

Meg wondered if Dex was short for Dexter, the name that Ted’s love nest at the inn had been registered under.

Ted leaned against the wall. “As soon as I got wind of Torie’s plan to fill out our foursome, I made Dad fly back from New York.”

“That’ll definitely pump up Spence’s ego. Playing with the great Dallas Beaudine.” Meg detected a trace of petulance in Kenny’s tone, and apparently Ted did, too.

“Stop acting like a girl. You’re almost as famous as Dad.” Ted’s smile faded, and he dropped his hands between his bent knees. “If we don’t pull this off, the town’s going to suffer in more ways than I want to think about.”

“It’s time you let people know exactly how serious the situation is.”

“They already do. But for now, I don’t want anybody saying it out loud.”

Another silence fell as the men finished their beers. Finally, Kenny stood to leave. “This isn’t your fault, Ted. Things were already in the crapper before you let yourself get elected mayor.”

“I know that.”

“You’re not a miracle worker. All you can do is give it your best effort.”

“You’ve been married to Lady Emma too long,” Ted grumbled. “You sound just like her. Next thing, you’ll be inviting me to join your damn book club.”

The men kept on like that, jabbing at each other as they made their way outside. Their voices faded. A car engine roared to life. Meg sagged back on her heels and let herself breathe.

And then she realized the lights were still on.

The door opened again, and a single set of footsteps echoed on the pine floors. She peered down. Ted stood in the middle of the room, his thumbs tucked in the back pockets of his jeans. He gazed toward the place where the altar had been, but this time his shoulders sagged ever so slightly, offering her a rare glimpse of the unguarded man beneath the self-possessed exterior.

The moment passed quickly. He moved toward the door that led to the kitchen. Her stomach tightened with dread. A moment later, she heard a very loud, very angry curse.

She ducked her head and buried her face in her hands. The angry thud of feet echoed through the church. Maybe, if she stayed very quiet . . .

“Meg!”

M
eg dashed toward the futon. “I’m trying to sleep up here,” she shouted, girding herself for battle. “Do you mind?”

Ted thundered up the steps to the loft, the floor trembling under his feet. “What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?”

She sat on the edge of the futon and tried to look as though she’d just awakened. “Obviously, not sleeping. What’s up with you, anyway? Barging in here in the middle of the night . . . And you shouldn’t curse in church.”

“How long have you been staying here?”

She stretched and yawned, trying to pull off her cool act. It would have been easier to do if she were wearing something more impressive than pirate-skull panties and the happy printing company T-shirt left behind by one of the guests. “Do you have to yell so loud?” she said. “You’re disturbing the neighbors. And they’re dead.”

“How long?”

“I’m not sure. Some of those headstones date all the way back to the 1840s.”

“I’m talking about
you.
”

“Oh. I’ve been here for a while. Where did you think I’d been staying?”

“I didn’t think about it at all. And you know why? Because I didn’t give a damn. I want you out of here.”

“I believe you, but this is Lucy’s church, and she told me I could stay as long as I want.” At least she would have if Meg had ever asked her.

“Wrong. This is my church, and you’re leaving here first thing tomorrow and not coming back.”

“Hold on. You gave this church to Lucy.”

“A wedding present. No wedding. No present.”

“I don’t think that will hold up in a court of law.”

“There wasn’t a legal contract!”

“You’re either a person who stands by his word or you’re not. Frankly, I’m beginning to think not.”

His eyebrows slammed together. “It’s my church, and you’re trespassing.”

“You see it your way. I see it mine. This is America. We’re entitled to our opinions.”

“Wrong. This is Texas. And my opinion is the only one that counts.”

A lot truer than she cared to acknowledge. “Lucy wants me to stay here, so I’m staying.” She absolutely would want Meg to stay here if she knew about it.

He planted a hand on the loft railing. “At first it was fun torturing you, but the game’s gotten old.” He dipped into his pocket and withdrew a money clip. “I want you out of town tomorrow. This is going to speed you on your way.”

He removed the bills, stuck the empty clip back in his pocket, and fanned the money in his fingers so she could count it. Five one-hundred-dollar bills. She swallowed hard. “You shouldn’t carry so much cash.”

“Normally I don’t, but a local property owner dropped by City Hall after the bank closed and paid the balance on an old tax bill. Aren’t you glad I couldn’t leave all that money lying around?” He dropped the bills on the futon. “Once you get back in Daddy’s good graces, have him write me a check.” He turned toward the stairs.

She couldn’t let him have the last word. “That was an interesting scene I walked in on Saturday at the inn. Were you screwing around on Lucy through all of your engagement or only part of it?”

He turned back and let his eyes slip over her, deliberately lingering on the happy printing company logo across her breasts. “I’ve always screwed around on Lucy. But don’t worry. She never suspected a thing.”

He disappeared down the stairs. A few moments later, the church went dark and the front door snapped closed behind him.

She drove bleary-eyed to her job the next morning, the money burning a radioactive hole in the pocket of her revolting new khaki Bermuda shorts. With Ted’s five hundred dollars, she could finally get back to L.A. where she could hole up in a cheap motel while she landed a job. Once her parents saw that she was capable of working hard at something, surely they’d relent and help her get a genuine fresh start.

But no. Instead of making a run for the city limits with Ted’s money, she was sticking around to begin a dead-end job as a country-club drink-cart girl.

At least the uniform wasn’t as bad as her polyester maid’s dress, although it ran a close second. At the end of her interview, the assistant manager had handed over a preppy yellow polo shirt bearing the country-club logo in hunter green. She’d been forced to use her precious tip money to buy her own regulation-length khaki shorts as well as a pair of cheap white sneakers and some odious pom-pom sneaker socks she couldn’t bear looking at.

As she turned into the club’s service drive, she was furious with herself for being too stubborn to grab Ted’s money and run. If the cash had come from anyone else, she might have, but she couldn’t tolerate taking a penny from him. Her decision was all the more lamebrained because she knew he’d do his best to get her fired as soon as he discovered she was working at the club. She could no longer pretend, even to herself, that she knew what she was doing.

The employee parking lot was emptier than she’d expected at eight o’clock. As she headed into the club through the service entrance, she reminded herself she had to keep Ted and his cronies from spotting her. She made her way to the assistant manager’s office, but it was locked and the club’s main floor deserted. She went back outside. A few golfers were on the course, but the only employee in sight was a worker watering the roses. When she asked where everyone was, he replied in Spanish, something about people being sick. He pointed her toward a door on the club’s lower level.

The pro shop was decorated like an old English pub with dark wood, brass fixtures, and a low-pile navy-and-green-plaid carpet. Pyramids of golf clubs stood guard between racks of neatly organized golf clothes, shoes, and visors bearing the club logo. The shop was empty except for a clean-cut guy behind the counter who was frantically punching at his cell. As she came closer, she read his name tag. mark. He wasn’t quite her height, in his mid- to late twenties, with a slight build, neatly cut light brown hair, and good teeth—a former frat boy who, unlike her, was at home in a polo shirt emblazoned with a country-club logo.

As she introduced herself, he looked up from his cell. “You picked a heck of a day to start work here,” he said. “Tell me you’ve caddied before, or at least play the game.”

“No. I’m the new
cart
girl.”

“Yeah, I understand. But you’ve caddied, right?”

“I’ve seen
Caddy Shack.
Does that count?”

He didn’t possess a great sense of humor. “Look, I don’t have time to screw around. A very important foursome is going to be here any minute.” After last night’s conversation, she didn’t need to think hard to identify the members of that important foursome. “I’ve just found out that all but one of our caddies is laid up with food poisoning, along with most of the staff. The kitchen put out some bad coleslaw yesterday for the employee lunch, and believe me, somebody’s going to lose a job over that.”

She didn’t like the direction of this conversation. Didn’t like it at all.

“I’m going to caddy for our VIP guest,” he said, coming out from behind the counter. “Lenny—he’s one of our regular loopers—hates coleslaw, and he’s on his way in now. Skeet’s caddying for Dallie, as usual, so that’s a big break. But I’m still short one caddy, and there’s no time left to find anybody.”

She swallowed. “That nice man watering the roses by the flagpole . . .”

“Doesn’t speak English.” He began steering her toward a door in the rear of the pro shop.

“Surely there’s somebody else on the staff who didn’t eat the coleslaw.”

“Yeah, our bartender, who has a broken ankle, and Jenny in billing, who’s eighty years old.” As he opened the door and gestured her through it, she felt him assessing her. “You don’t look like you’ll have any trouble carrying a bag for eighteen holes.”

“But I’ve never played golf, and I don’t know anything about it. I don’t even respect the game. All those trees chopped down and pesticides giving people cancer. It’ll be a disaster.” More than he could imagine. Only minutes earlier, she’d been contemplating how she’d stay out of Ted Beaudine’s sight. And now this.

“I’ll talk you through it. You do well, and you’ll earn a lot more than you can driving the drink cart. The fee for a beginning caddy is twenty-five dollars, but all these men are big tippers. You’ll get at least forty more.” He held the door open for her. “This is the caddy room.”

The cluttered space held a sagging couch and some metal folding chairs. A bulletin board displaying a no gambling sign hung above a folding table scattered with a deck of cards and some poker chips. He turned on the small television and pulled a dvD from the shelf. “This is the training video we show the kids in the junior caddy program. Watch it till I come back to get you. Remember to stick close to your player, but not close enough to distract him. Keep your eye on the ball, his clubs clean. Carry a towel at all times. Fix his divots on the fairway, his ball marks on the green—watch me. And don’t talk. Not unless one of the players talks to you.”

“I’m not good at not talking.”

“You’d better be today, especially when it comes to your opinions about golf courses.” He stopped at the door. “And never address a club member as anything other than ‘sir’ or ‘mister.’ No first names. Ever.”

She slumped onto the sagging couch as he disappeared. The training video came on. No way was she calling Ted Beaudine “sir.” Not for all the tip money in the world.